News

Congats to Matt Bors on becoming the first alt-comix type to win the2012 HERBLOCK PRIZE, and its $15,000 cash award.

The comics world lost one of its greatest visionaries with the passing this morning of the French artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud. One of the most influential artists of the last 40 years, Moebius died at his Paris home after a long illness at age 73.

"Speak of the Devil and he shall appear." On Wednesday, we were discussing how books were shipping on time, but there were a lot of fill-in artists. Now it's Friday and DC has announced two more "Guest Artists."

Following on what seems to have been a successful run with the Ultimate line, starting in June, Marvel will include a digital download code with ALL its books selling for $3.99. Marvel's moving ahead in this regard is interesting, since DC's John Rood has indicated that redemption of their combo packs has been "astonishingly low." In contrast David Gabriel says Marvel's program has been a big success.

The nominees for the 2012 GLyph Awards—honoring the best in comics' portrayal of African Americans—and as you might expect, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN by Bendis and Pichelli garnered a ton of noms. The awards will be presented on May 18 at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) in Philadelphia.

As many have noted, DC rolled out its brand spanking new website yesterday, with a whole new look, new logo and new commenting system. Among the many improvements, new sections for major characters, and subsections for videos, live social media updating and the like. (What, no Pinterest?) The site seems to be the work of the West Coast branding/web team, and although useful and streamlined, it does match the corporate vibe of a lot of DC rollouts of late.

Every month, Diamond publishes a list of comics for which previously solicited orders have been canceled. The reasons for the cancellations are varied. Sometimes it's Diamond—orders too low; sometimes it's the publishers—book is sold out or out of stock or just...canceled. And a lot of the time, the orders are canceled, but only to be re-solicited when a release is more feasible. With that in mind, here's this month's list, with the codes in effect:

Although when a final settlement was reached in the epic Gaiman/McFarlane legal battle a few weeks ago, most people thought it was all over. But now there is The Accounting. Daniel Best dug up the settlement papers which mentioned just how much money Todd McFarlane might owe Neil Gaiman. Just to be clearer about this, the money in question is in an escrow account and there is really no discussion over its exact disposition. As noted it would go to legal fees, or Neil Gaiman or other things. In addition, the profits from the characters Gaiman co-created—the actual subject of the lawsuit—have yet to be audited.

The CBLDF is offering this swell poster for THE MASSIVE by Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson as member thank you. BUT ONLY THIS WEEKEND! So hurry if u want to get this charmingly model kit-evoking poster.

Although we get all the PR, we haven't been covering Vivid's Axel Braun directed series of porn parodies of geek-beloved franchises because, well, it's not really in our target demo. However a recent release backs up what we've been told by porn industry insiders for quite a while: these nerd-themed parodies are the only hot category in the original porn business as homemade sex tapes and VOD have changed the entire distribution model. As Braun told Die Screaming:

Simone Lia's book of cute cat cartoons, FLUFFY, was one of the top sellers for Cape when it came out, and somehow, based on the title alone, we suspect this could top it:

Ward Sutton recalls an '80s Monkees revival tour for SPIN with touching detail. Actually, this is an OLD Sutton cartoon.